


Bureaucracy of Death

by Mycatistryingtokillme



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 17:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21305888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycatistryingtokillme/pseuds/Mycatistryingtokillme
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

I was sitting in a graveyard eating chocolate and petting a cat when my supervisor materialized out of the void to ruin my day. I popped another piece of chocolate in my mouth hoping that she might get the hint that whatever she was going to say, I wasn’t interested. But no such luck as I could see her gearing up to drop a bomb in my plan for the day (get some fast food for lunch and take a nap),   
“Violet, you're needed in 1934,” she said in her usual demanding southern accent (it was nice to listen to for exactly two minutes after I met her, then it was annoying). I raised an eyebrow and took my time chewing the half-melted chocolate in my mouth before answering in a deadpan tone   
“We had a deal, Louise, you don’t make me go back further than the 1970s and I don’t let people make deals for their lives”. She grimaced at my use of her first name and I had to fight back a stab of guilt.  
“We’re short-staffed in that year and we need you to handle a subway massacre”,   
“Why can’t you handle it?” I asked not even trying to hold back my annoyance (because honestly it’s just inconvenient for both of us if I have to go back before then, and massacre I haven’t even heard of? No way in hell I was dealing with it).   
“Because I have to take care of the Kelayres massacre in Pennsylvania” farrowing my eyebrows I tried to remember the event, Louise noticed my confusion and answered my unspoken question “Same year you're going to, four dead over three days”. Nodding I still didn’t make a move to get up from my spot on the low stone wall of the graveyard which prompted a sharp look from the older women, “you're going, so don’t even try to make up an excuse” she said her southern accent growing stronger with her growing anger. For a moment I could see through her glamor (the magic that makes you look different), her suit pants, blue button-up, and tan jacket morphed into a blue ball gown, complete with an obscene amount of ruffles. Her blonde hair had been done up in an artful bun, and her makeup would have won three beauty pageants easily. She would have been the perfect southern belle had it not been for the dirt, rips, and blood that marred the once perfect fabric of her dress and the makeup that had streamed down her face with the tears (that and of course the giant gash in her neck).   
Looking at Louise’s true from always reminded me why we were chosen to be reapers, we had all died violently at the hands of someone we loved. She noticed the change in my expression and she quickly put her glamor back into place, more than a little miffed. Turning away I sighed and gathered up my stuff before standing up on the ledge of the wall muttering that I’d handle the stupid subway massacre. Looking satisfied my boss warped away, taking a deep breath I forced myself to fall forward into the waiting void.   
Now I know what your thinking (and coincidently it’s probably what your gonna think when you die) ‘what the actual hell is going on!?’. So I’m going to answer your question (and a couple of others you’ll probably have), first off when you die don’t expect the skeleton guy with the robe and the giant scythe (we call him Mr.grim, he’s the big boss) cause these days he’s too busy filling out paperwork, giving orders, and making puns to go out and reap souls. Second, when you die your gonna meet a reaper and the reaper's job is to usher your soul into whatever the hell is next. On the topic of reapers, it essentially boils down to if you die by say your husband slashing your throat (like Louise), or get your head bashed in by your crush (like me), then you have a chance of being picked by whatever cosmic deity is out there to become a reaper. No one really knows what chooses you for the job, there are no concrete gods the only thing you can count on to be there is death (your depressing thought for the day).   
Now if you get chosen to be a reaper your gonna be like a human, just with more rules and stuff. For starters, your gonna end up with   
1) the ability to not only teleport and time travel, but your gonna do it in the most dramatic way possible; turning into an actual shadow so you can traverse the void to whenever/ where ever you need to be.   
2) Your gonna get a weapon that you not only reap souls, but you have to reach into the literal void to get it (it’s great, also your kisses send souls into whatever comes next so it’s your choice on what you use).  
3) You get paid $11.50 an hour in whatever currency you prefer (plus bonuses if you laugh at Mr.Grim’s puns), room and board (in what basically equates to a giant apartment building), and best of all; you can’t get fired, ever (cause your dead, where else are you going to go?).   
4) Physical wounds heal in a matter of minutes. The only downside is you can’t interact with humans, not on a broad scale at least (you can go into a store and buy something, but when you actually talk with anyone and they'll forget they saw you after a few minutes. It makes going to restaurants more trouble than they're worth). That’s really all the interesting parts, cause otherwise, death is basically a bureaucracy with more souls of the damned.   
Now seeing as falling through the void is taking longer than I thought it would, some facts about me (cause I’m really digging the whole list thing right now)   
1) As mentioned earlier I am dead cause my crush bashed my head in with a rock (I’m not sad or angry about it, more just apathetic I guess).   
2) At the age of thirteen, I am the youngest reaper since King Tutankhamun (aka King Tut but he’s really damn picky about his name) kicked the bucket at the age of 19.   
3) I was from California (but I love rock & roll, some modern stuff is… ok I guess), my mom was black but my dad was white (I didn’t know him but my mom was badass).   
4) I died in 1983 (the only reason you don’t hear me using the words, gnarly, and tubular, is because I actively try not to say them).   
5) Lightning round; I like junk food, cats, big T-shirts, rock music, no I have no idea how to control my hair, and no you can’t ask any more questions. Keeping up? Good, cause the actions about to start.


	2. I find a new girl and channel my inner New Yorker

Popping up in 1932 I take stock of where I am, which is coincidentally twenty feet from the rapidly closing doors subway I need to be on. So channeling my inner new yorker, I make a mad dash for the doors and manage to make it in just as the doors are closing (and by that I mean I squeezed in as the doors were closing, only to belly flop on the floor and lay there for a few seconds contemplating the best way to not bail on this job). Taking a deep breath I push myself up to my feet and plop directly into a seat in the back and watched the people around me, knowing all but one of them was going to die before they ever left the subway car. Observing the other passengers I saw two girls a little older than me sat towards the front of the car laughing while an older woman watched with a sour look on her face(probably for making so much noise). A seat behind them a man wearing a suit was sitting hunched over his violin case. Violin guy was watching another girl (Mabey 16, but definitely not 18) that was putting on lipstick. As my eyes scanned the people I got the stupid bit of hope that always comes when I do a job, that it was a mistake and all the people would live today and I wouldn’t see them again until they had lived a long and fulfilling life (spoiler alert: it never happens). My momentary hope fizzles and dies in record time though when I see the man in the blue suit sitting across the aisle from me, his body language is like what I've seen a thousand times before; hunched over, sweaty, shifty-eyed but not making eye contact with anyone. It’s the body language of someone about to commit an atrocity.   
We’ve only been moving for ten minutes when the man stands up, it’s like the world moves in slow motion as he pulls out gun and opens fire on everyone in the subway car the first is the man with violin then the two girls near the front, he gets the older woman when she tries to run for the exit. The last is the girl who was putting on lipstick, when she falls I can’t help but flinch even though I’ve seen it a million times before on other jobs. As the girl drops to the floor the murder looks at his work and I think of how satisfying it would be to reap his soul right here and now, but I know that I can’t change history and he’s not fated to die today. At the next stop, he sprints off the train and I see the spirits of the other passengers start to form, with a sigh I stand from my seat and plunk a quick kiss on the people’s foreheads before they can ask too many questions. I’m almost up to the front of the car when I notice that the lipstick girl’s soul is glowing brighter than any other soul I’ve seen. Moving closer I am momentarily blinded by what seemed like a camera flash(only about a million times brighter), when I can see again lipstick girl stood over her body in complete shock(she still had her death wounds visible, it’s gonna be hell to teach her how to use glamor).   
“Well, fuck. This is gonna be a shit ton of paperwork isn’t it?” I said visibly startling the girl in front of me, rolling my eyes I reached out and grabbed her wrist, “listen I don’t have time to get in specifics right now but just know that you dead, your a reaper, and I’m taking you to meet the grim reaper he’s your new boss we call him Mr. Grim. I said trying(and failing) to hide my annoyance while pulling the girl with me to stand on top of a couple of seats. “Any questions that don’t have to do with what I just said” I turned to the girl who was obviously freaking out but calmed down slightly when she noticed I was looking at her taking a deep breath the girl managed to squeak out   
“what's your name, and why are we standing on the seats?” Looking at her I was a little surprised she managed to say anything, from what I’ve heard (and experienced) the first few days of getting this job you don't say a whole lot, your to overwhelmed by everything, so instead of immediately plunging into the void with the newbie in tow I answered her   
“My names Violet, and were standing on the seats because we have to fall”. Before she could get another word out I pulled her with me as I let myself fall forward.


	3. The new girl is kinda a bitch

For the record transversing the void is about a million times easier when you don't have a passenger, especially an unwilling one. But I managed to get the new girl into the bureaucracy of death main office, which looks like a regular office only all the potted plants are wilted and the receptionist has an ax sticking out the back of her skull (I tried asking why she doesn't remove it or use glamor once, she just looked at me like I was crazy). Pulling the girl with me to the desk I slam my hand on the little bell until the receptionists (for the life of me I can’t remember her name) turned to me,   
“Yes violet, how can I help you?” she said in a new jersey accent and a sickly sweet smile, I roll my eyes and move aside so that she can see the freshly made reaper behind me. A smirk makes its way onto my lips when I see the receptionist's mouth drop open in surprise   
“you see, I gotta talk to Mr. Grim so that he can give the orientation to… what is your name newbie?” I say realizing I never actually asked her before,   
“Betty,” she said after a moment I nodded and turned back to the desk   
“So Mr. Grim can give the orientation to Betty here, so if I could get the express key for the elevator that be great,” I say in the most sugary sweet voice I can manage. This snaps the receptionist out of her shock, and I snatch the large brass key from her hand before I turn on my heel and march towards the elevator. Only sparing a quick glance behind me to make sure Betty was following (she was, duh). Once in the elevator, I insert the key into the lock at the bottom of the button panel, which revealed a big black button with a skull on crossbones painted on (I’ll give Mr. grim this, he chose a theme and stuck to it). Hitting the button with more force than what was strictly necessary we were off towards Death’s office.  
Betty stands next to me as still as a statue (I can only assume that shock finally set in) and when I turn to look at her I cringe at the blood she’s tracking the ground (I happen to like the cleaning staff here, even if they are literal shades of the damned).   
“Can you do the cleaning staff a favor and try to not get blood on everything?” I say still partway annoyed that I’m the one who has to deal with getting the new girl to Mr.Grim. My words snap Betty out of her shock in much the same way as the receptionist (Susan! That’s her name!)  
“Well, I’m sorry that my getting shot is inconveniencing the staff!” The teen cried in a mock apologetic tone. I scowled and replied with as much snark as I could muster (which is a lot let me tell ya)   
“Well your gonna be sorry when you meet the cleaning shade who will be cleaning your room, cause let me tell ya they remember this stuff and they definitely hold grudges!”. This seems to send Betty through a loop, which is great because in the moment that she was floundering for a response the doors of the elevator opened to the hallway of offices. (like I said before Death has an aesthetic, so imagine a long hallway from a haunted house and add dead plants and piles of paperwork outside the doors) I grabbed Betty by the arm and yanked her down the hallway to the big door at the end. I manage to successfully push the older girl into the chairs outside Death’s office door and then turned on my turned on my heel fully intending to go to Mcdonalds for french fries.  
“You're just going to leave my here!?” Betty screeched as she stood to follow me. Completely done with this situation (because honestly, I would have preferred the near-comatose recruits we usually get over her) I wheel back to the girl and jam my finger in her face.  
“I don’t care what happens to you from here, so shut up, listen to death, and we’ll both hope we never see each other for the rest of eternity,” I say while steadily pushing Betty back into the chair. Storming my way into the elevator I call to the teen as an afterthought “Welcome to the bureaucracy of death!” Betty flips me off and I returned the gesture as the elevator doors close and the office door opened.


End file.
